DANCING
Dancing is considered a great cardio workout. But the beauty of dancing for exercise lies in its ability to target a different type of fitness. Where running a treadmill may improve cardiovascular endurance and body composition, dancing can target those two components, as well as muscular endurance and flexibility! And that’s on top of improved balance, agility, coordination, power, reactivity and speed!
To achieve a healthy level of activity while dancing we recommend aiming for exertion levels between a 5 and 7 (where 1 is resting and 10 is the hardest thing you do). To understand if you’re working hard enough try the ‘talk test’. This means you shouldn’t be so out of breath that you can’t speak, but your words should be a little choppy and you should be breathing heavily.
The added bonus of substituting dancing for exercise at home is there’s (probably) no one watching. So, you can bust out your best dress ups, pump up the music and practice your best 80s movie montage moves, all while ticking off some fun and effective exercise!
Plus, after 30 minutes of this you’ll release a ton of feel good hormones like serotonin and endorphins! There are plenty of good reasons to put dancing on your list of alternative workouts.